The subject matter herein relates generally to conductive shields that surround electronic components for protecting the electronic components or surrounding components from electromagnetic interference.
Electronic components are configured to perform designated tasks and are often mounted onto printed circuits. For example, integrated circuits or other logic-based devices may be mounted to a printed circuit board (PCB) and be communicatively coupled to other components of a system through conductive traces of the PCB. Electronic components may be susceptible to electromagnetic interface (EMI) and/or generate EMI that may cause unwanted effects to other nearby components. As such, it may be desirable to isolate other components on the PCB, reduce crosstalk, and/or reduce EMI susceptibility without negatively impacting performance.
To this end, an electronic component may be protected by a conductive shield, which may also be referred to as a board-level shield. The conductive shield may be stamped from sheet metal and shaped to form a box-like container. The conductive shield is positioned onto the printed circuit such that the electronic component is surrounded by the conductive shield. The conductive shield is designed to electrically couple to a ground conductor of the printed circuit (e.g., ground plane) through a plurality of terminals. More specifically, the sheet metal is stamped to include sidewalls and elongated terminals. As such, the sidewalls and terminals are portions of the same piece of sheet metal. The sheet metal is then shaped such that the sidewalls essentially form the desired container and the terminals are positioned to be inserted into plated thru-holes of the printed circuit. Accordingly, the electronic component may be positioned on the printed circuit and the conductive shield may be mounted over the electronic component.
Although such conductive shields are sufficient for impeding EMI leakage, the conductive shield is typically designed for particular applications, which may limit the use of a certain design, and can be costly to manufacture.
Accordingly, a need remains for conductive shields that are less costly to manufacture and/or are more easily adapted for different applications, and yet are sufficiently capable of impeding EMI leakage.